Corruption In China: How Public Officials Took $120 Billion And Fled Overseas

BEIJING - Just how many corrupt Chinese government officials have fled overseas? How much money have they stashed away? And how did they manage to transfer such colossal sums abroad?

Last week the Bank of China published a report entitled "How corrupt officials transfer assets overseas, and a study of monitoring." The report quoted statistics based on research by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Since 1990, the number of Communist Party and government officials, public security members, judicial cadres, agents of State institutions, and senior management figures of state-owned enterprises fleeing China has reached nearly 18,000. Also missing is about 800 billion yuan (more than $120 billion).